According to United States Government statistics, a person is added to an organ transplant waiting list every 10 minutes. Each day, an average of 79 people receive organ transplants. However, an average of 18 people die each day waiting for transplants that can't take place because of the shortage of donated organs.
One particular topic of pertinence to the present invention is that of kidney disease. It is reported that, in 2009, $42.5 billion was spent in the U.S. for support of some 400,000 dialysis patients and 172,000 transplant recipients. Medicare paid 68 percent of that bill.
Successful kidney transplant procedures, from a financial standpoint, produced a break-even point in only three years, with over 85% of all kidney transplant recipients surviving at least five years (while less than 36% of dialysis patients survive that long). Also during 2009, some 49,000 people died of kidney failure—most for lack of available kidneys for transplant.
As our population ages, and fewer, healthy organ donors are available, it is reasonable to assume that organ shortages, and deaths from unfulfilled organ needs will only rise. Whether already the product of the aging populating, or for one or more other reason(s), the number of persons in need or organ transplants is rising at a much faster pace than the supply of donated organs. Absent a heretofore unforeseen breakthrough in medical science, the picture is bleak indeed for those presently on transplant waiting lists, as even more so for ever-increasing portions of future such persons.